Raise the Roof!

We have been literally and figuratively raising the roof over here at 23 Magnolia. For those of my readers not versed in late 90s hip-hop, that means we have been physically raising the roof whilst also celebrating the raising of the roof. You might think that means when we’re not working on the roof, we’re living it up. Sadly, that is not true at all. We’re too sore from all the working!

The week after we jacked up the walls, Gus the Crane Operator came by to move the trusses from behind the house, where they’ve been in the way for months, and balance them on the newly erected second floor walls. It wasn’t as entertaining as Tache’s steel beam dance, but it was pretty impressive to see our future roof dangling in mid-air.

As to why the trusses were lying on the ground for months… way back in February, Tache called our local lumberyard to get a quote. Trusses, by the way, are the triangular wood structures that support the roof. In the past, you could build them yourself. But, as Tache puts it, the government got involved (seriously, I beg you, don’t get him started) and now they need to be engineered. The local lumberyard isn’t licensed to build them, so they called their truss supplier. When they got back to us with the price tag, Tache told them in no uncertain terms hell no and called a random truss company directly to finagle a lower price. As it turns out, that company was the supplier for our lumberyard. They politely informed us they couldn’t sell to us and that we would have to go through the middleman: the lumberyard. Due to the insane cost, we told them both – in no uncertain terms – thanks, but no thanks, and we began looking at other engineering options for the roof.

Well, one way or another the lines got crossed. Someone at the lumberyard gave our order the go. We had no idea until the truss company called completely out of the blue telling us the trusses would be dropped off the next day. We said we never ordered them, confusion ensued, numerous phone calls were made, reprimanding (I assume) occurred. Long story short, we got our trusses for the cost of materials only – saving us over $8,000! Raise the roof!!!

We then had the A-team help roll the trusses (that’s what it’s called apparently) and in a matter of days, we had the trusses up and sheathed with OSB. One day the house was a square box; the next day it was looking very “housey,” as a friend put it.

Rolling the Trusses

Sheathing the Trusses

Due to a ridiculously wet Juneuary, momentum slowed after that first week of roof raising. Despite the unrelenting rain, we were able to finish all the prep work before putting down the actual roof last weekend. To do so, we formed an assembly line – me on the ground, Jodi on the entry way roof (thank you!), and Tache up top – to raise the 40+ metal sheets that make up the largest area of our roof. (Where’s Gus when you need him!?!) Tache then harnessed himself in to lay down the other side of the second floor roof, 28 feet up in the air.

The Literal Roof

Tache 28 Feet Up

I’ll end with this, physically raising the roof has made me aware of muscles under my armpits I never knew existed. Nevertheless, I can still figuratively raise the roof to our literal raised roof. And that’s definitely a reason to PARTY!!